The Phantom
by WhiteWings9
Summary: A Phantom of the Opera!AU, with multiple pairings - Russia/Prussia/Germany/China. WIP.
1. Prologue

**The Phantom  
><strong>**Prologue**

"This is where you beg for your life, isn't it?"

Blood welled up in his throat, filling his mouth and pouring past his lips in a sticky crimson sheet past his chin, his neck.

His neck crushed in the grip of a large, gloved hand.

"Oh," said the phantom with a chillingly child-like giggle. "I must have broken your vocal chords."

_Bastard!_ he wanted to spit. But all that came out was a choked gurgle and a fresh cascade of blood pooling in his throat, cutting off his air supply, drowning him.

He had never felt so helpless.

His eyelids were drawing shut of their own accord, as if weighted. His hands on the phantom's arm were slackening their hold; his feet dangling a precious few centimetres above the stone-cobbled floor were slowing in their frantic kicking. The last of his strength was draining with his slipping consciousness.

The phantom's merciless gaze, untouched by the cruel mirth twisting its lips, fixed avidly on Gilbert Weilschmidt's contorted expression in the final moments of his life.

* * *

><p><strong>Author's note:<strong>

This is something I have wanted to write for quite some time now. I once wrote a _Phantom of the Opera_!AU throwaway, and ever since I have always wanted to expand it into a full-blown fanfiction series.

This project is also going to be an exercise in writing to a schedule. I'm thinking there should be around ten chapters for this story, so if I upload a chapter a week it should take just over two months to complete it.

**Warning in advance: **The chapters are going to be short and drabbly because I haven't really thought out all the minute details of the universe OTL

I am also very aware that the title is pretty lame. If anyone has a suggestion for a better one, please share it C:


	2. Chapter 1

**The Phantom  
>Chapter 1<strong>

_My dearest Ludwig,_

_I cannot return. Do not concern yourself with my welfare. Never look for me, for your own safety._

_This is farewell._

_Your brother,_

_Gilbert Weilschmidt_

Ludwig read without seeing the sloping words in his brother's hand. The letter was tattered and creased from multiple perusals, the edges worn and torn in places. As the train rattled along with a clockwork _clackity-clack_ rhythm, Ludwig re-folded the letter and tucked it absent-mindedly away, his heavy blue eyes glancing out the window to the endless Russian landscape.

Two years have passed since his brother's disappearance. The only clues he left of his whereabouts were in bits and pieces in his document-strewn study; ticket stubs from Vienna, Dresden and Berlin, receipts for fresh travels to Rome and Paris, and a large map scribbled with several more destinations across Europe. His personal library was in disarray; dusty books on several subjects, ranging everything from scientific literature to geographical surveys, had key pages dog-eared and unintelligible notes scrawled in the margins.

One particular book did stand out. It was a huge tome on mythology.

His brother had never struck him as superstitious or particularly interested in the subject. The book itself had been borrowed from a library, and after exhausting it thoroughly for clues, Ludwig had reluctantly returned it. In any case, all he could be certain of was that his brother had left for Rome and Paris two years ago, on a mysterious quest with nothing more than his current journal, some books and a spare set of clothes.

Two years. Ludwig had spent two whole years travelling and searching for his brother. He spent the first six months in Italy, where he had nearly despaired. His next stop was in France, where he received a tip-off of Gilbert travelling to England. There, he finally came across a friend of Gilbert who pointed him to Russia.

"_He dropped in unannounced one night," Arthur Kirkland had said. "He was very subdued. All he said was that he had found him here, in London, and that he was going to follow him to St Petersburg."_

"_Him?" Ludwig asked._

"_He would not say," Arthur said after a pause, his large eyebrows furrowing. "All I caught was, 'das Phantom.'"_

The phantom?

His brother's disappearance was cloaking itself in another layer of mystery. He was a freelance travel journalist, earning a modest keep in a modestly thrilling occupation. He had nothing to do with the occult and had never expressed any particular interest in it. So why was he chasing after ghosts across Europe?

The compartment door slid open suddenly, snapping Ludwig out of his reverie. A man in traditional Chinese attire paused at the doorway, his shoulder-length hair tied in a loose ponytail, his bright golden eyes fixing on Ludwig, widening slightly – in surprise? In recognition?

"Excusez-moi, est-ce le compartiment pour fumer?" the man asked in halting, heavily-accented French, the language of the Enlightened Age.

Ludwig blinked. He must have imagined it.

"Ah, non. Le compartiment pour fumer est dans le dernier wagon du train," he said, pointing.

The man looked to where he had pointed, nodded and uttered, "Merci," and rolled the door shut, making his way presumably to the smoking room. Ludwig stared after his receding figure for a moment, finding him oddly familiar. As if he had seen him somewhere before, perhaps in a street in Paris? London?

He shook his head and returned his gaze back out the window, his thoughts returning once more to stew on his long lost brother.

* * *

><p><strong>Author's note:<strong>

This is set in the late 1800s, but please don't expect wonderfully intricate period details. As much as I'll love to dedicate hours researching, the plan is to power through the chapters every week so things will be kept purposely vague. Where it's important I will do a quick research, but nothing too taxing. If any historical inaccuracies were to arise, just please ignore it, okay? Dx

The train Ludwig is riding on is the Warsaw - St Petersburg Railway. I just wanted to make sure such a train existed in that period

I am also under the impression from historical books and films that French is the language of the time because of the French Enlightenment. However, this might be the norm only among nobles. This is also without taking into consideration period-accurate French, and whether or not Google Translate has provided a good translation or not (my French is really terrible, apologies U_U).

**English translations:**

_"Excusez-moi, est-ce le compartiment pour fumer?"  
><em>"Excuse me. Is this a smoking compartment?"

_"Ah, non. Le compartiment pour fumer est dans le dernier wagon du train,"  
><em>"Oh, no. The smoking room is at the end of the carriage."

**This will be the only chapter with any French in it, I promise!**


	3. Chapter 2

**The Phantom  
><strong>**Chapter 2**

Ludwig's first point of search in any new city was always to find the biggest library in town and ensconce himself in the newspaper archives. The idea was to read every periodical he could lay his hands on, both local and national, to try find any scrap of his brother's writing. Writing was his bread and butter, after all, and even his brother with his never-say-die attitude needed sustenance.

That was the logic, but Ludwig had found nothing more recent than a small travel piece written almost three years ago in a local French newspaper. He had already scoured up to four years' backlog of all the major English and French daily newspapers, and made it a point to do the same with the national papers of each new country he searched, gradually whittling down to the local papers of whichever town he happened to be in.

In the National Library of Russia in St Petersburg, having searched methodically for a fortnight, Ludwig had turned up with nothing with dwindling hope of ever finding anything with each passing day. Just as it had been in London and Warsaw.

His brother had no other occupational skills. The thought of Gilbert Weilschmidt living off honest good hard work in a farm or a factory somewhere was laughable, and he would rather not imagine whatever else a passably attractive albino in his mid-twenties could offer for a living. It was simply as if his brother had simply vanished from the face of the earth.

(The little niggle that perhaps his brother was no longer alive was always kept carefully at bay.)

Ludiwg slammed shut the travel journal he had been scanning through, snatched off his reading glasses and rubbed his tired eyes. The trail was turning cold. He did not know where to go from here, and not for the first time he wondered despairingly if he will ever see his brother again.

He must have fallen asleep in mid-thought, because the next moment he was being gently shaken awake by a timid-looking librarian.

"I'm sorry, but we are closing soon, sir," he said apologetically, his bright green eyes shining with concern at Ludwig's haggard appearance.

Ludwig wheeled stiffly in his seat and saw that it had gotten dark outside.

"Oh, sorry," he mumbled distractedly, and began gathering the journals on his desk together. "May I take these out?"

Moments later Ludwig stepped out into the biting Russian chill and stood for a moment, shivering and shifting the books in his arm, and realising he had eaten nothing all day as his stomach growled hollowly. With his shoulders hunched against the bitter north wind, he began walking briskly in the direction of his temporary lodgings. Dinner cleared away at half past seven, but he might be able to persuade his landlady to take pity and warm him up some leftovers.

He was about to turn the corner of the street when someone caught his eye. There, in the midst of a grey, listless crowd was a strikingly pale young man, too lightly dressed for the winter cold, his startlingly crimson eyes casting long, wary looks around him as he stalked down the street.

Ludwig stopped abruptly, unable to believe his own eyes.

After all this time…

He took a step, then another, and another, and finally he gave chase, bursting into a run, dropping his books as he stumbled haphazardly, pushing past people in panicked haste and ignoring their indignant yelps and shouts of abuse, his eyes fixed to the crop of pure white hair in the midst of the hatted and hooded crowd.

_Gilbert, Gilbert, Gilbert!_ he screamed internally, lungs too tight for air, throat too constricted to give voice as he ran as fast as he could, quickly closing the distance between himself and his brother.

His gloved hand clamped onto Gilbert's shoulder, jerking him violently round, and suddenly he was staring into the face of his estranged brother.

"I've found you!"

* * *

><p><strong>Author's note:<strong>

This was meant to be posted last week! I'm so sorry for the delay, but life decided to pull all kinds of shit orz

This chapter is largely filling in some background. Things pick up after this, I promise. It's short, as all the chapter will be, but I hope I'm keeping things interesting orz

Shoehorned in the National Library of Russia in St Petersburg to pretend I'm doing _some_period research orz

Lots of orzes... orz


End file.
